I’m a giant cat toy

Does your cat treat you as a giant cat toy? It is easy to become a playmate for your cat especially of your cat is young. It is also completely normal. The cat owner can dictate, to a certain extent, how much of a cat toy he/she is. It is easy to encourage a cat to play and play rough with you if you want it that way. But if you want to play rough with your cat be prepared for some scratches and even a little nip and don’t complain and blame your cat when you get scratched.

http://youtu.be/TM3zspi-x-Y

You can see how this woman enjoys playing with her cat Finnegan and how she encourages it. Finnegan responds with glee. However, with respect, I don’t agree with what she says (see below) about her cat being nutty and all that sort of stuff because this is absolutely normal cat behavior. It has nothing to do with being part Siamese or anything else. A cat, even an adult cat, will respond to prompts to play/hunt. In the video the woman wiggles her feet around and taps the cushion. This is the sort of thing we all do to stimulate our cat to play or, more accurately, attack!

1) he’s part Siamese. they’re really weird cats. 2) I totally encourage this behavior. He only does it with me because he sees me as his littermate and we play rough. I’m really lucky his behavior doesn’t extend to anyone else…he’s super sweet and cuddly with whoever comes over and wonderful with my son. But me…I’m a giant toy.

I have discovered that a good way of allowing your young cat to let off steam while being free to do work is to find a toy with which he/she can play alone. There is a demand from a young cat to play and for an older person who has other things to do, the demand can become a little too much sometimes.

If you want to avoid physical contact – and most of us do if your cat is playing rough or is in a heightened state of play – then string is one of the easy ways to play with your cat. Here is a short video of Gabriel responding to string dangled near the cat tree which stimulates him into climbing. I like to see a cat climb and scratch on the cat tree. He is however, becoming too large for the little platforms at the top of the tree.

It seems to me that ideally two young cats should be raised together as they can play with each other. Young siblings is what we often see.